A Vision for Moving San Francisco Into the Future

What is the vision?

To establish a vision for San Francisco’s transportation system, our program team began by asking as a City: where have we been, where are we now, and where do we want to go?

Through discussions held with the ConnectSF Futures Task Force and with residents and stakeholders in focus groups, online forums, pop-up events, and other targeted outreach efforts, a vision for the City emerged that was guided by ConnectSF’s goals: equity; economic vitality; environmental sustainability; safety and livability; and accountability and engagement. This vision will be used as a common starting point to guide future transportation plans and decisions.

How was the vision developed?

Central to crafting the vision was answering the question “What is the future of San Francisco as a place to live, work and play in the next 25 and 50 years?”

To answer this question, staff employed a scenario planning framework – a methodology used by businesses and large-scale public agencies and governments designed to help organizations think strategically about the future. This methodology identifies drivers of change and critical uncertainties, develops plausible future scenarios to understand how San Francisco may react in those scenarios, the implications and paths for the City to navigate each of those plausible futures, and a preferred future to strive towards.

Who was involved in developing the vision?

A robust outreach process to collect the ideas and feedback of residents and other stakeholders was used to craft the vision. This included focus groups, online surveys, pop-ups, meetings with communtiy-based organizations, and other initiatives.

How will the vision be used?

The Vision is the first phase of the ConnectSF program. Its content, goals, and objectives will provide the foundation of the program’s remaining efforts, which seek to provide a path to our preferred future and the transportation system that will serve it.

What’s next?

The ConnectSF vision was presented to the SFCTA Board of Directors and SFMTA Board of Directors in Spring 2018. Both of these boards voted to endorse the ConnectSF Vision document. The San Francisco Planning Commission approved the ConnectSF Vision document on April 19, 2018. The ConnectSF team is working on the next phase of the program, which includes the Transit Corridors Study and the Streets and Freeways Study.